CHAPTER 15



Chapter 15

Reconstruction and the New South

Chapter Summary

The military aspect of the American Civil War lasted less than five years and ended in April 1865, but it would take another dozen years of Reconstruction to determine what the results of the war would be. The only questions clearly settled by the time of Appomattox were that the nation was indivisible and that slavery must end. The nation faced other issues with far-reaching implications. What would be the place of the freedmen in Southern society? How would the rebellious states be brought back into their "proper relationship" with the Union? The victorious North was in a position to dominate the South, but Northern politicians were not united in either resolve or purpose. For over two years after the fighting stopped, there was no coherent Reconstruction policy. Congress and the president struggled with each other, and various factions in Congress had differing views on politics, race, and union. Congress finally won control and dominated the Reconstruction process until Southern resistance and Northern ambivalence led to the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Whites who reasserted their economic and political control set out to industrialize the region but with little success. The South remained a troubled agricultural sector. No economic, political, or social issue in the South could escape the race question. The Jim Crow system of the southern establishment succeeded in evading the spirit of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and many African Americans began to wonder just who won the Civil War. Meanwhile the South continued its colonial relationship with the North and southern plain folk, black and white, found themselves trapped by crop liens in circumstances some felt were almost as bad as slavery

Objectives

A thorough study of Chapter 15 should enable the student to understand

1. The conditions in the former Confederacy after Appomattox that would have made any attempt at genuine Reconstruction most difficult.

2. The differences between the Conservative and Radical views on the Reconstruction process and the reasons for the eventual Radical domination.

3. The functioning of the impeachment process in the case of President Andrew Johnson and the significance of his acquittal for the future of Reconstruction.

4. Radical Reconstruction in practice and Southern (black and white) reaction to it.

5. The debate among historians concerning the nature of Reconstruction, its accomplishments, and its harmful effects on the South.

6. The national problems faced by President Ulysses S. Grant and the reasons for his lack of success as chief executive.

7. The diplomatic successes of the Johnson and Grant administrations and the role of the presidents in achieving them.

8. The greenback question and how it reflected postwar financial problems of the nation.

9. The alternatives that were available during the election of 1876 and the effects of the Compromise of 1877 on the South and on the nation.

10. The response of African Americans to conditions in the South following Reconstruction.

11. The reasons for the failure of the South to develop a strong industrial economy after Reconstruction.

12. The methods used in the South to regain control of its own affairs and the course of action it chose thereafter.

13. The ways in which Southerners decided to handle the race question and the origin of the system identified with "Jim Crow."

14. The typical pattern of Southern agriculture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the impact this had on the region and its people.

15. The debate among historians over the origins of segregation after the Civil War.

Main Themes

1. That the defeat and devastation of the South presented the nation with severe social, economic, and political problems.

2. How Radical Reconstruction changed the South but fell short of the full transformation needed to secure equality for the freedman.

3. That white society and the federal government lacked the will to enforce effectively most of the constitutional and legal guarantees acquired by blacks during Reconstruction.

4. How the policies of the Grant administration moved beyond Reconstruction matters to foreshadow issues of the late nineteenth century.

5. How white leaders reestablished economic and political control of the South and sought to modernize the region through industrialization.

6. How the race question continued to dominate southern life.

Points for Discussion

1. Describe the social and economic conditions of the South in the aftermath of the war. Discuss the political, economic, and emotional issues facing Northern leaders in devising a plan of Reconstruction.

2. What was the controversy surrounding the Black Codes? Were they a necessary and realistic response to the situation or a thinly disguised attempt to resubjugate the freedmen? (Document number 1 in the Study Guide applies here.)

3. Compare and contrast Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction, the Wade-Davis Bill, Johnson's plan, and Radical Reconstruction. Consider provisions, motives, goals, and results.

4. What was the crop lien system and why did it arise? What were the consequences of the system of land ownership and crop selection? Could the system be fairly described as a "vicious circle"?

5. Explain the process of impeaching a president. On what grounds was Andrew Johnson impeached? Were these charges the real reason for his impeachment? Should he have been convicted?

6. How did those groups who lived through Reconstruction view their experiences? How would those views be reflected in later historical debates? (Document number 1 in the Study Guide applies here.)

7. In contrast to domestic failures, the Johnson and Grant administrations completed several diplomatic triumphs. Discuss.

8. Why was the Grant administration so riddled with corruption? Was it unique or similar to previous administrations? What had happened to the United States (socially and economically) to make corruption likely to flourish?

9. Discuss the factors that contributed to the rapid "redemption" of the Southern states and the national abandonment of Reconstruction by the late 1870s.

10. What was done to protect the freedman(politically, economically, and physically? What more could have been done? How might "forty acres and a mule" have helped the freedman?

11. Evaluate the successes and failures of Reconstruction. What decisions could have been made to avoid the failures? What groundwork was laid for future change?

12. What was the greenback question and how did it reflect the postwar financial problems of the nation?

13. Although many changes had occurred by 1900, the South remained an impoverished agricultural region, lagging well behind the rest of the nation. Describe the economic changes in the South, and assess why they were not adequate to bring the old Confederacy into the national mainstream, as some of the region's spokesmen had hoped. (Document number 2 in the Study Guide will help here.)

14. How did Southerners intend to build a "New South" in the years after Reconstruction? Analyze their success in accomplishing this objective.

15. Explain the ways in which the Southern white establishment was able to evade the spirit of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. What alternative paths of accommodation and resistance did black leaders propose to this rise of Jim Crow? (Document number 3 in the Study Guide will help here.)

16. What was the significance of the case Plessy v. Ferguson? How was it received by whites in the South? Where does it fit into the creation of the system known as Jim Crow? (Document number 3 in the Study Guide applies here.)

17. How have historians interpreted the nature of Reconstruction and how have they attempted to explain the origins of segregation?

18. How was the minstrel show a testament to both the high awareness of race and the high level of racism in American society before and after the Civil War?

Interpretive Questions Based on Maps and Text

1. Note the location of the first state to be readmitted and explain why it was restored to the Union so quickly.

2. What did the other ten states have to do to gain their readmission in 1868(1870? What additional requirement did the last three face?

3. Note the first three states to experience the reestablishment of Conservative government and explain why the restoration of Democratic party rule came so quickly there.

4. What forces delayed the reestablishment of Conservative government in the other states? What episode symbolically marks the end of the Reconstruction era?

5. In general, what areas of the country voted Republican? Why?

6. In general, what areas of the country voted Democratic? Why?

7. What desires of the freedmen led to the changing residential pattern evident from the Barrow Plantation maps?

8. What advantage did the new system have for both the landowner and the freedman? What disadvantages?

9. What cash crop was most common in the areas of heavy sharecropping? What forces led to the sharecropping alternative and how did it work?

10. Why was sharecropping less common in some areas than in others?

11. How did sharecropping and the crop lien system go hand in hand?

Essay Questions

These essays are based on the map exercises. They are designed to test students' knowledge of the geography of the area discussed in this chapter and to test their knowledge of its historical development. Careful reading of the text will help them answer these questions.

1. Considering geographic, climatic, economic, and political factors, explain what forces worked for a quick reconstruction of the Union and what forces worked against it.

2. What significance did the changing pattern of agricultural residence in the South have for African American family life?

3. What changes in land tenure in the South did the Civil War cause? What were the long-term consequences of these changes for Southern society?

4. What political realignment took place as a result of Reconstruction? What regions of the nation did not change their political party loyalty?

5. How did the South remain in somewhat of a colonial relationship with the Northeast and Midwest throughout the nineteenth century? What was the long-term significance of this sort of relationship?

Internet Resources

For Internet quizzes, resources, references to additional books and films, and more, consult the

text’s Online Learning Center at brinkley12.

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